Against

With the Asus Republic of Gamers Crosshair V Formula it has produced a board that makes us almost want to recommend it regardless of whether or not Bulldozer is much cop.

We've looked at a few motherboards based on AMD's 9-series chipsets now, and so far the general impression has been that they're OK. Unfortunately it all really depends on the forthcoming FX (aka Bulldozer) processors to make them worthwhile.

Like other Crosshair, Rampage and Maximus motherboards in the RoG series, it's a stupidly over specified board that just makes you want to grin.

It's unlikely most people would even know what to do with half of the features included, let alone actually use them. So being able to say you own a motherboard that features them carries its own form of geek cache.

What sort of things do we mean?

There's the optional remote for overclocking, for a start, and the power out points for taking manual volt readings of the main motherboard rails. There's the plethora of diagnostic LEDs, the inclusion of two full 16 lane graphics ports for two way SLI or Crossfire... the list goes on.

This motherboard supports latest AMD Socket AM3+ multi-core processors with up to 8 native CPU cores and delivers better overclocking capabilities with less power consumption. It features AMD Turbo CORE Technology 2.0 and accelerates data transfer rate up to 5200MT/s via HyperTransport 3.0 based system bus. This motherboard also supports AMD CPUs in the new 32nm manufacturing process.